flowering currant is flowering

[piranha]

ribes sanguineum.

today's good thing about dreamwidth:

better cross-site functions, eg. crossposting to LJ (by open beta).

Comments

[trulybloom.livejournal.com]

Question about dreamwidth. It's my understanding that most, if not all, accounts will be paid accounts.

If that is the case, how will communities work? Is there a charge to have a community, just like there will be a charge to have a personal account? Or, once you buy a personal account, then you can open some number of community accounts for free?

Any idea? I've tried to read the FAQs, such as they are, but didn't find this addressed.

But with about HALF my time at LJ being spent - either directly or indirectly - with the communities, I'd like to know how that will work at DW.

If you know, could you let me know - if you don't, could you inquire?

[foxfirefey]

No, no--basically, you can get an account through an invite or paying. But accounts do not have to be paid, there is a free level. The business plan is for 5% of accounts to be paid to support the service.

Anybody can open communities. Communities will be able to have paid accounts, and we are looking into good paid community features. (We are also improving the community experience for maintainers all across the board, by allowing them to do things like add lj-cuts to posts.)

[redbird]

If I read it right, you might need to pay to start a community or personal account, but once it exists, you can let it revert to free status. So, $3 one-time charge for an account.

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

no, you do not have to pay to start a community; anyone can (except for openID accounts).

you are correct about personal accounts. or you can get an invite code, and then it's entirely free.

[trulybloom.livejournal.com]

My question is, once I've paid for an account - for example, a personal account - will I have to pay a second time in order to open a community?

Or does one fee allow me to open multiple accounts?

And, your post brings up another question: once this is all out of the beta-testing phase, must you start out as a paid subscriber (reverting to "free" status after a month, if you want) or can you start out as a free subscriber and decide later if you want to upgrade to paid?

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

My question is, once I've paid for an account - for example, a personal account - will I have to pay a second time in order to open a community?

no. once you have a personal account you can create as many communities as you like. whether you paid for that account and it has since lapsed, or you got an invite code is irrelevant, once you have it, you can create communities.

Or does one fee allow me to open multiple accounts?

no. fee, or invite code: create one personal account. communities are a different type of account.

once this is all out of the beta-testing phase, must you start out as a paid subscriber (reverting to "free" status after a month, if you want) or can you start out as a free subscriber and decide later if you want to upgrade to paid?

you can only start out as a free subscriber if you have an invite code, in open beta and after official launch. once you have an account, you can upgrade later, or downgrade (there is more than one level of paid account), or let the payments lapse and revert to free.

[liv]

most, if not all, accounts will be paid accounts
Not at all; they're aiming for something like LJ where about 5-10% of accounts are paid. You're right that letting people make free accounts is absolutely necessary for the functioning of communities, including the informal ones that are just networks of friends using the service. Basically communities on DW work pretty much exactly like LJ, I can't think of any major changes that are in the works for that aspect of the site.

When the site first launches into Open Beta, they're looking to limit growth until they know things are stable. They're doing this with invite codes, such that you need a code from an existing user in order to create an account. But you can bypass this requirement by paying $3 for one month of paid time, which then expires and leaves you with a perfectly functional free account. I should think that even in this phase the vast majority of users will be free, though. And when the site fully launches to public, they're talking about giving away invite codes more or less to anyone who asks, so as long as you know one other person on the site (and if you don't, there's probably not much point joining) you can set up a free account.

At the moment, once you have a personal account you can create unlimited free communities without needing any further invite codes. AFAIK they're planning to keep the system that way.

[trulybloom.livejournal.com]

Ah, I think I understand now.

I am eager to see how DW plays out. I am really liking what I'm hearing and hope they can make it work financially so that they can remain ad-free.